I am the deputy editor of investing content for Forbes Media. I'm responsible for money and investing coverage on Forbes.com and in Forbes magazine. As editor of the Forbes Dividend Investor newsletter service, I send out two dividend stock recommendations per week and send out weekly updates with the best 25 current buys. I'm also a Senior Editor for Forbes Newsletter Group, including its virtual events business, Forbes iConferences. Prior to joining the company, I spent five years with CNN Financial News working with Lou Dobbs, where I produced long-form pieces and reported on management, entrepreneurship and financial markets. I've also worked for Bloomberg TV and Inc. Magazine.

Shares of casino and resort operator Las Vegas Sands were trading at $36.18 Thursday afternoon. The stock has tumbled a swift 20% since last Friday morning and now trades at levels not seen since October 2010.

Shares moved lower on big volume Wednesday after the company reported results that missed Wall Street’s earnings and sales forecasts for the March-June period of 2012, blaming weaker than expected business at its four properties in Macau, the gambling haven on China’s eastern coast, as well as higher expenses for opening its latest property there, the Sands Cotai Central.

Las Vegas Sands said that second-quarter net income fell 35% to $240.6 million, 29 cents a share, from $367.6 million (45 cents per share) one year earlier. Analysts had expected EPS of 60 cents. Excluding one-time charges against earnings would have produced EPS of 44 cents, roughly flat with last year. Revenue still managed to grow 10% to $2.58 billion, but analysts were looking for $2.77 billion.

“For thousands of years, the Asian people have been seeing gaming and chance taking as their form of entertainment, and anybody who thinks that a quarter is creating a new trend, there is nothing on the horizon, nothing within sight, nothing on the horizon that would suggest that the gaming habits of Asian people are going to change,” said Las Vegas Sands’ billionaire CEO and chairman, Sheldon Adelson, on the conference call with analysts.

The performance of gaming and resort stocks like Las Vegas Sands, Wynn Resorts MGM Resorts Intl. and Caesars Entertainment is highly correlated to the pace of economic growth. These are growth stocks, with the casinos pushing aggressively into a still expanding Asian market, and they generate lots of cash. Wynn and Las Vegas Sands are both sending some of the winnings back to shareholders via dividends. Wynn yields 2.2% and LVS sports a nifty 2.8% yield. The board just declared the most recent 25-cent payout. Adelson also expressed interest in a stock buyback and in raising the dividends.

“The shareholders, whether it’s me, my wife, my kids, my pets, my doggies or kitties..wants dividends, so we’ll probably focus more on dividends,” said Adelson. “But I’m going to tell you, look at the stock price now…and it seems to me that it’s one hell of a good reason to take a lot of the money and put it into some buyback.”

So how safe is the company’s $1 annual divided and its ability to fund a buyback? LVS had $3.5 billion of cash on the balance sheet as of June 30. CFO Kenneth Kay says he expects the company to spend $500 million at Sands Cotai Central and $350 million in maintenance across properties for the rest of 2012. That still leaves $2.65 billion, or $3.48 per share, in cash. In the past four quarters, it generated $3.82 per share in cash. That amply covers the dividend and leaves around $6 in cash on the books.

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